“That’s why you came here—for safety?” The girl’s eyes widened. “You must be crazy.”
Jim shook his head.
“Not a thing. But smile, Blanche. Get that look of worry out of your dandy eyes. There are waiters around.”
The girl shrugged her shoulders a little helplessly. But she smiled. And somehow the smile was unforced.
“Oh, Jim, you’re just the same. Just the same—what shall I say?—devil-may-care you’ve always been. You’ve told me enough to make me realise something of the awful thing you’ve been through. And your beautiful white hair, and those cruel lines down around your mouth and cheeks, tell of what you have not told. What are you going to do?”
“Do?”
Jim sat back in his chair and laughed happily as the waiter approached with two pêches Melbas. He continued to smile while the man removed the plates and set the sweets before them. Then, as he withdrew, his smile resolved itself into that twinkle which was his natural expression of good-humour.
“Why, I guess there’s a whole heap of things I could do,” he went on quietly. “But I’m only going to do just one of ’em. You know, Blanche, it’s a pretty terrible thing when a feller gets bug on notions of the welfare of his fellow-man. It’s the sort of craziness that sets a boy yearning to get after folks and things with a club. He sort of sees red most every time he hears some fool kid won’t eat its bottle right, and the birch in a school-house is liable to set him shooting up Presidents. Which mostly means the bottom’s dropped right out of his sense of proportion, and his backbone’s disintegrated in the juices of a mess of sloppy sympathy. Well, there’s nothing much wrong with my backbone yet, and my sense of proportion seems in decent shape. All that’s happened is that I’ve got a notion, and, if you feel good about it, I’m going to work it out. If it works good I’ll be mighty pleased, and’ll be feeling like some commercial philanthropist who reads a news-sheet’s account of his good works. If it doesn’t, why, I’ll throw in my hand, and start a fresh deal with the same deck of cards.”
The man paused for a moment, and his sister shook her head admonishingly.
“I don’t think I’ll ever understand you, Jim, any more than I shall ever understand our Eddie,” Blanche said. “Maybe I lack a sense of humour. Maybe, being a woman, I haven’t a notion beyond the things I was raised to. Why—why had you two boys to quit business right here in New York and get out to the—tough countries? You had ample here. Our folks left us all three the same. And the business was good. No, you sell up and get out. I know you’ve made a big fortune in gold, and Eddie was doing well in Greenwood. But—but all this terrible disaster could have been avoided. All this——”